


Lost and Found

by kikibug13



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Amnesia, Explicit Language, F/M, Love, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you love somebody, set them free."</p>
<p>Yes, but making sure they have input in the process is usually a good idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Winter Soldier #14.
> 
> The tail end is inspired by [this fic](http://natalia-romanova.dreamwidth.org/1158.html).
> 
> For love_bingo fill: Mistake.

It was like in the fucking Police song. Every breath he took, every move he made. Not her. Him.

The thought of her never went away, he'd had stab wounds and bullet wounds that hurt way less. It was wrong, her absence was wrong, missing her was wrong, having to make that choice was wrong, not being able to let go was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Painful, but mostly wrong. 

His whole self, as much as he could be called 'whole' - especially now - was screaming at him, that he'd made a mistake. That he'd gotten it wrong. That he'd fucked things up and go back and _fix_ it, Barnes, you can do better than that, but he couldn't. he didn't know how, he didn't have anything to fix it with.

He was no longer a part of her life. Novokov had known - no, not known, but estimated - how much pain that simple change would cause him. Aside from watching Natasha broken apart, put together again wrong, to have to be pulled apart and put together mostly right to fix it. That had been bad enough. That had broken him.

This? This was agony. 

One that there was no respite from. 

He'd existed, after his death, without her, before. He'd moved and talked and killed and obeyed. Not lived, but existed. He'd almost lived without her, after that, too. Seeking the broken shards of his life scattered around the globe. That's what he came back to, really, without her.

Trying to put back together something that never really functioned on its own in the first place. 

All he could think of was her fierceness, the fire in her eyes as she saved a woman whose husband abused her with an equal grace and skill as she saved the world with. The woman who was conditioned to be a weapon, the perfect weapon, who had found a way to be alive, to be _real_ and good and outstanding, all on her own. 

He'd helped shaped her. Maybe, he thought in his more optimistic moments, he'd helped her keep alive the human part of herself. The one that Project X and the Red Room and _any_ similar organization tried to burn out of them first. The one part of her that told her right from wrong. That let her be a killer and a hero, sometimes at the same time, but, in the end, made her a woman.

The woman he loved, though in the grand scheme of things, that was probably the last thing she would be remembered for, in a thousand years. (If the serum didn't mean she'd still be around, then, and Bucky didn't want to think about that. What that much time would do to her. That much time, and that much loss.) 

The woman who gave him reason to pull himself back together after Steve died. Sure, Steve's letter and Steve's legacy had helped, but she was the one that weaved the broken strands of his life back together into a single thread, then made sure the thread didn't get torn down... again. 

Then Novokov had cut it all from her hands, leaving her crippled--

Then Novokov had cut it all from her hands, leaving her possibly happier and definitely stronger than before. 

_Who the hell's Bucky?_

He recalled throwing those words in Steve's face (he hadn't remembered, then. Either.) He recalled the way Captain America's face had shattered and he recalled not caring other than the tactical advantage and the strategic one, from such a reaction. 

Now they were coming back to haunt him, and how. 

Every word and every motion he could recall (and he had a stupid good memory, even better since the Cube) were in his mind, behind his eyes, day and night.

Even the faintest trace of her scent could send a sharp, cold thrill through him, and set his teeth on edge. Anything more... God. 

He scavenged for scraps and tidbits of information about her. Sometimes from friends, sometimes from foes, but he kept an eye while keeping her distance. She had earned her space, and her peace. Nobody would have put her through _this_ , not right now or anytime soon, if not for Bucky. So he stayed the fuck away, tried to shoot out any potential threat to her before it got too close and, cliche as that might seem, let her have her space. Let her have her _life_ , without the blight of him. (Staying safe would be pushing it way too far. She was the Black Widow, and danger was a part of her.)

She was doing all right. Had her assignments. Had her team, her friends (not him). She was doing so much better than having to go through the suggested treatments as a price for a reword as meager and damaged as himself. Magic. Telepathy. Medications. He'd seen most of those. 

They weren't all right, by him.

Not for anyone, and not for his Nat. No-longer-his Nat. 

Drinking up a bottle and beating up a bar became a regular occurrence. Neither helped with the pain, but at least the bastards paid. Paid for not being Leonid. For having women who remembered. For doing a slew of actually terrible things that needed punishment. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

He stumbled out of one such pub, with a so-so decent fight, and there she was. A shadow at the corner of his vision, and then the full force of a very angry Natalia Romanova slamming into him, beating him up, and, by fuck, even that was good if she was there.

She did not remember. She did not recognize him, but she'd sought him out because there was a crack in her memories and she could sense the shape of it, follow it to its source, to its other end, and - figure out who was at the center of it. And have questions.

_“Who the hell are you and why has someone taken great pains to eliminate all memory of you from my mind?”_

Because he had been hers, and she did not give up easily what belonged to him. People and memories least of all. She was prepared to fight for it, for him, and that--

That was when he finally realized his mistake. Realized what the permeating feeling of _wrong_ had been.

He had refused to let her be used and abused by experimental treatments to get one small part of her life, so broken and twisted and unhappy (on his own) as he was, back. 

But it had not been his call to make.

She had been awake when he walked out. She'd met his eyes through the translucent door. She had been mostly recovered. She had been _aware_.

He'd left.

He should have fucking _asked_.

And now he didn't know how to get _that_ asshattery of his fixed. How to get _her_ fixed.

(But she was there. And his heart was singing.)

She didn't want him gone from her life, at least not like that. 

That was a whole new world, to find out about.


End file.
